State of Microsoft .NET: transition to .Net Core or be left behind

The transition of Microsoft’s .NET platform from Windows-only to cross-platform (and open source) is the right thing. Along with Xamarin (.NET for mobile platforms), it means that developers with skills in C#, F# and Visual Basic can target new platforms, and that existing applications can with sufficient effort be migrated to Linux on the server or to mobile clients.

That does not mean it is easy. Microsoft forked .NET to create .NET Core (it is only four years since I wrote up one of the early announcements on The Register) and the problem with forks is that you get divergence, making it harder to jump from one fork to the other.

At first this was disguised. The idea was that .NET Framework (the old Windows-only .NET) would be evolved alongside .NET Core and new language features would apply to both, at least initially. In addition, ASP.NET Core (the web framework) runs on either .NET Framework or .NET Core.

This is now changing. Microsoft has shifted its position so that .NET Framework is in near-maintenance mode and that new features come only to .NET Core. Last month, Microsoft’s Damian Edwards stated that ASP.NET Core will only run on .NET Core starting from 3.0, the next major version.

This week Mads Torgersen, C# Program Manager, summarised new features in the forthcoming C# 8.0. Many of these features will only work on .NET Core:

Async streams, indexers and ranges all rely on new framework types that will be part of .NET Standard 2.1. As Immo describes in his post Announcing .NET Standard 2.1, .NET Core 3.0 as well as Xamarin, Unity and Mono will all implement .NET Standard 2.1, but .NET Framework 4.8 will not. This means that the types required to use these features won’t be available when you target C# 8.0 to .NET Framework 4.8.

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Default interface member implementations rely on new runtime enhancements, and we will not make those in the .NET Runtime 4.8 either. So this feature simply will not work on .NET Framework 4.8 and on older versions of .NET.

The obvious answer is to switch to .NET Core. Microsoft is making this more feasible by supporting WPF and Windows Forms with .NET Core, on Windows only. Entity Framework 6 will also be supported. It is also likely that this will work on Windows 7 as well as Windows 10.

This move will not be welcome to all developers. The servicing for .NET Framework is automatic, via Windows Update or on-premises equivalents, but for .NET Core requires developer attention. Inevitably some things will not work quite the same on .NET Core and for long-term stability it may be preferable to stay with .NET Framework. The more rapid release cycle of .NET Core is not necessarily a good thing if you prioritise reliability over new features.

The problem though: from now on, .NET Framework will not evolve much. There are a few new things in .NET Framework 4.8, like high DPI support, Edge-based browser control, and better touch support. There are really minimal essential updates. In time, maintaining applications on .NET Framework will look like a mistake as application capabilities and performance fall behind. That means, if you are a .NET developer, .NET Core is in your future.